Should US have gun control?

considering the gun laws we have now are not followed by the ones that are doing these shootings, how is it really going to be better to take guns away from law abiding citizens? I hunt, I've taken optional gun courses, I'm not going around shooting people. Guns and Gun Owners are not the problem.

BTW, Vermont has almost no gun laws, and gives the right to bear arms explicitly in its Constitution which predates the US Constitution. (Article 16 in the Constitution of 1777)http://www.gunownersofvermont.org/

Vermonters think this song spoofs the kind of folk who come up to VT to hunt out of their cars, a practice frowned upon there.

I always will remember,
'Twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin' bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.
I was in no mood to trifle,
I took down my trusty rifle
And went out to stalk my prey.
What a haul I made that day.
I tied them to my fender, and I drove them home somehow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.
The law was very firm, it
Took away my permit,
The worst punishment I ever endured.
It turned out there was a reason,
Cows were out of season,
And one of the hunters wasn't insured.
People ask me how I do it,
And I say, "There's nothin' to it,You just stand there lookin' cute,
And when something moves, you shoot!"
And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Guernsey cow.

Open Season for every paranoid person to shoot other people for no reason.

I understand that people keep a gun for hunting, target shooting, or home protection. But can we have some laws against assault weapons, or guns that have a clip of 100 rounds at a time? People argue that if they give an inch, it will be a "slippery slope" ending with all guns being banned, but that plainly won't happen. We need to have some limits. We supposedly have some laws, but they clearly are not enforced well enough or aren't stringent enough. Maureen Reagan, the former President's daughter, once said that maybe what we should regulate was not guns but ammunition. Certainly there's an idea in there. This guy ordered boxes and boxes of ammo through the mail. Postal X-ray machines could take care of that right quick.

Interestingly, cops aren't too cool on the more sophisticated kinds of firepower, because they have to go out on the street against these guns. And against hollow-point bullets that shatter inside the body and make for devastating wounds. Can we manage to do without the privilege of having those available?

I'm always intrigued by people who say they think that more people should be armed. A gunman breaks into a school and shoots, and people want the teachers to be armed. Consider the logistics. The teacher can't leave the gun in her desk. An unlocked desk...well, you see the problem. But a locked desk means you can't get at the gun quickly in an emergency, so what's the point? So you have to wear the gun all the time. Now, suppose two kids start scrapping, and you have to separate them. You're wearing the gun. The kids distract you. A third kid grabs for the gun. The safety catch is on, of course, but any nine-year-old knows how to disengage it. Or maybe when the kids are scrapping, you don't try to disengage them; you just point the gun at them to behave? Also, may I ask how you deal with the gun when in the bathroom?

Then there's the matter of a gunman attacking a crowd. You are in the crowd, with your sidearm. You stand up and look around to disarm the gunman. Unfortunately,
1. You are now a stationary target.
2. Three other people are standing up pointing guns. Things are moving split-second. Quick...which one do you shoot?
3. The gunman (the bad one) is wearing body armor. You aren't, because you are at a movie.
4. Another concerned citizen thinks you are the gunman and shoots.

You see how I have concluded that more guns won't necessarily make life safer. In any case, I am not good at target sports. Too bad for me if guns become necessary, and I must take control of my own defense. Or possibly, too bad for any of you if you're standing nearby and I have to shoot a bad person. I'm sure to hit something! but probably not the bad person.

As usual, Olympia and Doris have written posts I completely agree with. I will add that the gun lobby has done a brilliant and dangerous job of blurring the lines with regard to gun control. As for the law abiding citizens argument, that's a misnomer. Yes many petty criminal and those committing individual acts of murder acquire their guns illegally. But many people fail to question what the illegal source is. It's becoming increasingly clear that a great many of those guns have been acquired legally by those very same law abiders and then resold at steep prices to those who can't acquire them legally.

In addition, as has already been stated, there is no logical reason why a middle aged man or woman needs a magazine clip with 100 rounds or the gun necessary to fire them While I do not like guns, I understand that simple handguns can be a comfort to certain people as in Doris' Vermont example. However, those are vastly different to assault weapons. Still that simple logic is lost on many gun advocates. WI senator Ron Johnson made an utterly moronic statement over the weekend claiming that owning high capacity magazines is a constitutional 2nd amendment right. Ridiculous, but sadly accepted as true by too many. Russell Pearce, the former Arizona state senator and creator of its controversial immigration law, was the loudest of several voices who essentially blamed the victims for not taking action against the shooter.

This is a troubling way of thinking. It implies that we must each be armed to the teeth when we go out in public for any purpose and prepared to take action like a vigilante movie hero or famed victims of flight 93. We should also be fully up to date of combat training and tactical assault, otherwise how could anyone be prepared to react to such an attack. It's a thoroughly nonsensical point of view. Still too many have bought into this sort of Rambo mentality where it's them against the world. I frankly find that perspective to be deranged. In addition, many of the politicians who espouse that point of view are dishonestly exploiting those fears despite not sharing them in private.

Still, as usual, we are so numb to these tragedies that we will forget and move on and do absolutely nothing. I need to move to Switzerland.

Rankings per capita
USA 90 guns per 100 people
Yemen 61 guns per 100 people
Finland 56 guns per 100 people
Switzerland 46 guns per 100 people
Iraq 39 guns per 100 people
Serbia 38 guns per 100 people
France, Sweden, Austria, Germany, and Canada 30 guns per 100 people

The trouble with trying to restrict assault weapons is defining what an assault weapon is. As soon as you define it, the manufacturers make a gun that is just slightly different that doesn't meet the description.

However, I see no point in allowing anyone to carry a concealed weapon on their person, outside of their own home.

Curiously enough, in FL, concealed carry is encouraged, but openly wearing your pistol is illegal. There is nothing about Florida's gun laws that makes sense.

Another point worth making is that the gun lobby has deliberately confused the issue by implying that the only solution worth pursuing is one that is 100 percent foolproof. They say criminals will still get access to guns. True, but perhaps not as many of them will succeed. That could mean your son or daughter making it home a the end of the night. I like to compare our arguments about guns and other subjects to the choices families have to make when a loved one needs serious medical care. Do we only consent to treatment if there is a 100 percent guarantee of success? Or do we opt for the form of care that gives the greatest opportunity to heal? If the first treatment does not work out, do we throw up our hands and give up, or do we keep trying? Right now we are not trying at all.

As for Switzerland and guns per capita, despite being 4th, they have a far lower rate of gun deaths than us. No comparison really. Same for Canada and many other western nations. There is a cultural difference at play there. Also, while I am not certain, I assume that we still have greater access to high capacity guns than many other western nations.

Despite the lack of rigid gun laws, firearms are strictly connected to a sense of collective responsibility.

From an early age Swiss men and women associate weaponry with being called to defend their country.

Plus it's a wealthy country.

There are problems, however, primarily with the firearms suicide rate. However, a call to house military guns at a local arsenal rather than in the home was defeated last year. Gun and shooting clubs are an important thread in social life apparently.

Furthermore, VT has a decent social safety net, and it has decent health care & education. It is neither particularly wealth nor particularly poor.http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/statemedian/
New Jersey's median family income is roughly 82.5K while VT's is 62.5K AL is about 50K

When discussing the shooting in Aurora with a co-worker, his comment was that he feels that he's more likely to get a gun now. I asked him if he honestly thought that his having a firearm would've helped. If anyone else had attempted to shoot at the perpetrator, he was more likely to injure or kill someone trying to get away - as well as increasing the risk to his own life in putting himself out there to take aim.

I can't recall the exact quote, but someone on facebook posted something to the effect that guns were 'muskets' in the 1700's. Our forefathers had no idea of the types of weapons that would be created.

I certainly don't understand why an average (or any) household would need an automatic weapon. They are created to utterly destroy - not defend.

As for guns in a household, they do require a great deal of responsibility - and too many people are lax in this regard. My uncle had a handgun - he lived in my grandparent's with their daughter (his wife) and their 2 sons. My grandmother watched the kids while everyone else was at work and she did not speak English. When one cousin was probably 4 or 5 and his little brother was 2, the cousin took the gun out of the dresser drawer where the baby was sleeping. He pulled the trigger of a loaded gun. Fortunately, the bullet clipped his finger and embedded in the dresser. No one was seriously hurt. My grandmother didnt' know what to do; so, she started to clean the wall. Fortunately, the neighbors heard the shot and called the police, who removed the gun from the premises.

Now, that incident occurred back in the 1970's when people had more time to be careful. These days, people are so busy and easily distracted.

I definitely don't think that one should be able to mail order weapons and ammo as this hinders the ability of the salesperson to note any odd behavior.
The shooter in Aurora obtained his weapons via legal means. However, someone at a gun club he wanted to join put a 'hold' on his application until they could meet face to face (due to a weird answering machine message.) This just tells me that it is important that someone acquiring weapons and/or ammo needs to meet face to face with someone who is trained to observe for signs of possible risky behavior.

So, yes, I am in favor of more stringent gun control laws - which does not mean that I feel that all weapons should be banned, but that some should not be allowed (i.e. automatic weapons) and that certain qualifications needs to be met when purchasing.

Heyang, what a scary story! I actually lived on the same block as a sixteen-year-old kid, who ought to have known better but either was playing with a gun or was with friends who were playing with a gun. His brother became an only child thereafter.

Your last paragraph pretty much reflects my stance on the matter. The Constitution does not give people carte blanche to keep boxes and boxes of ammo in the house. Also, no amendment protects the right of people to buy body armor.

There's another side to the story, and I don't know whether it would have affected this perpetrator or not, because I'm not sure that he exhibited any signs of mental illness beforehand. (If he did, it sounds as if it was only very recently.) But our laws in this country about what can be done to keep the severely mentally ill in a protected environment are as lax as our gun control laws. In the late 1970s or early 1980s, people who were distressed (justifiably) at the awful conditions in asylums and mental hospitals got the laws changed so that patients could not be committed longterm to facilities. They would live in the community, where local resources would take care of them. Unfortunately, most communities couldn't afford or or were unwilling to take on the burden of supplying such resources as halfway houses and so forth. Many mentally ill people just ended up on the streets. Some were a danger to others; many were targets for attacks. They went without medication because there was no system to supervise them, and they could not be committed for more than a brief period of time. Better regulations would have gotten help for the Virginia Tech killer, who was severely impaired for most of his life and received, I believe, no treatment. The young man who shot Congresswoman Giffords and several others, killing some of them, would also have been restrained before he proved his illness by a killing spree. Not every mentally ill person is dangerous, of course. But those who are can't be located and treated effectively (which might involve temporary or longterm restraints). The man who shot President Reagan is still locked up principally because he tried to assassinate a sitting President.